Bronwyn Jameson - Fortune's Mergers

And now she was considering sleeping with a man from her father’s world? The world she hated, despised, shunned?

She dropped her elbows to her desk and her head to her hands. “Oh, God,” she moaned miserably. “What was I thinking?”

She needed to forget Case Fortune and focus her mind on toads. Timothy Toad, specifically. Timothy Toad was her friend, her redeemer. He was the only male she could count on, the only one who had never let her down. He had no faults, no ulterior motives, no hidden agendas. He was perfect in every way.

There was only one problem. Two, actually, if she considered the fact that Timothy Toad was a figment of her imagination.

Timothy might be a male, but he wasn’t a man .

Yawning, Gina rubbed her fists against her eyes, trying to scrub away the webs of weariness. It was pushing midnight on day eight of her deadline and she wanted nothing more than to go to bed. But sleep was out of the question until she’d made the requested changes on the illustrations.

Glum, she poked a toe at the wads of paper littering the floor around her feet. Each represented a failed attempt at giving the art director what he wanted. She’d been at it for a week and she was no closer to capturing on paper the art director’s concept than she had been when she had started.

Firming her jaw, she snatched up the pencil again and held it over the blank piece of paper.

“It’s because you’re not concentrating hard enough,” she lectured sternly. “You know the story. Heck, you wrote it! Just draw the images and emotions that are in your head.”

Hoping to jumpstart her creative juices, she pressed the lead to the paper, drew a circle, then leaned back and studied it, waiting for the image hiding inside to reveal itself. Something flashed by the window, catching her eye, and she glanced up in alarm.

But the only thing she saw was her own image reflected in the dark glass.

“Now you’re seeing things,” she muttered under her breath. “Next thing you know you’ll be talking to yourself.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth, realizing it was too late. She already was.

Something struck the glass and she snapped her head up in time to see a flash of white, before it dropped beneath the ledge and disappeared from sight. Her heart thudding wildly, she stood and leaned to peer out. Frustrated by the drafting table that stood between her and the window, she shifted around to its end and pushed it out of her way.

Another flash of white streaked past her peripheral vision and she whirled to the window to look out, watching as the white object drifted slowly down. Paper? she asked herself. Whatever it was it couldn’t be anything more substantial than paper or it would have made a more of a sound when it hit the window.

She shifted her gaze to the sidewalk directly below her window and saw a man standing beneath the street light. A vandal, she thought, her anger surging. Prepared to give the guy apiece of her mind, she shoved up the window. “What do you think you’re doing down there?” she shouted furiously. “If you don’t leave this instant, I’m calling the police.”

The man tipped his head back and looked up.

She gaped. “Case?”

“Stay right there!” he shouted, then darted over to pick up the paper from the ground.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

“Sending you an airmail message.” He reared his arm back and sent the white object flying.

When she saw that the paper airplane was going to come short of making it to her window, she leaned out and grabbed it, managing to catch it by the tip of a wing. Ducking back inside, she read the message scrawled inside.

It’s been a week. No calls. Toad lovers need hugs, too .

She pressed her fingers against her lips, her heart melting at the last line, then let out a laugh and leaned out the window and called down to him, “You’re crazy.”

“No I’m not. I’m lonely. Can I come up? It’s freezing out here.”

She winced, remembering her earlier decision to forget Case Fortune. “It’s kind of late,” she hedged.

“It’s not like you’re asleep or anything,” he pointed out. “Come on, Gina. At least give me a chance to warm up.”

She vacillated a moment longer, then caved, telling herself it was cold outside and he probably was freezing. “Okay. But just for a minute.”

She closed the window, then stooped to scoop up the wadded balls of paper and stuff them into the waste basket. She didn’t want him to see the evidence of her creative block.

She heard the muffled sound of the elevator making its ascent and hurried to the door, combing her fingers through her straggly hair.

When she opened the door, Case was stepping off the elevator. He was dressed casually for a change. Boots, jeans, a black sweater beneath a leather jacket. His hair was mussed—probably from the watch cap he’d dragged off his head and shoved into a pocket of his jacket—and his cheeks were ruddy from the cold. If possible, he looked even more handsome than he did when wearing a business suit.

She groaned inwardly, remembering her ragged sweats and the lime green fuzzy socks that covered her feet.

A slow smile spread across his face. “Hi, gorgeous.”

She ducked her head and wound a strand of hair behind her ear. “I look a mess.”

“You look wonderful to me.”

Before she could call him the liar he was, he put his hands on her shoulders and backed her into her loft.

“Seven days, three hours and thirty-two minutes,” he said, as he kicked the door closed behind him.

She blinked at him in confusion. “What?”

“That’s how long I’ve been wanting to do this.”

Before she realized his intent, he covered her mouth with his. She didn’t want to kiss him, she told herself. And she didn’t want him kissing her .

Or did she?

She might have mentally decided she never wanted to see him again, but her body didn’t appear to have received the message. Without conscious thought, she was leaning into him, her breasts pressed against the muscled wall of his chest, her face tipped up to his. His hands slid to her back, his palms urging her closer still, and she responded, lifting her arms and looping them around his neck.

Strong. Possessive. Demanding. His kiss mirrored exactly the character traits she’d attributed to him, yet she didn’t find his kiss in the least bit repulsive. In fact, she found it intoxicating, invigorating, exciting.

He framed her face between his hands and drew back with a satisfied sigh to press his lips against her forehead.

“I’ve been thinking about doing that all week.”

His voice sounded rusty, the admission dragged from a place deep inside him. She’d been thinking about kissing him, too, but couldn’t have uttered a word if her life had depended on it.

He tipped her face higher, his expression filled with reproach.

“Why haven’t you called?”

“I—I haven’t finished the drawings.”

He glanced toward her drawing table, where the task light cast a circle of light over her sketch pad. “You were working?”

She nodded.

“And I interrupted you,” he said with regret.

She shrugged. “No biggie. I wasn’t making much progress anyway.”

He shifted his gaze back to hers, a smile teasing one corner of his mouth. “Would thinking about me having anything to do with that?”

She stared, at first horrified that he somehow knew the cause of her creative block, then pursed her lips. “Your ego is showing.”

He slipped his hands beneath the hem of her sweatshirt and drew her hips to his. “I was thinking about you. Couldn’t get a thing done all week.”

She gulped, remembering Zoie quizzing her about the hard-on and trying not to think about that. “Y-you’re just saying that.”